Did Christianity Start with Jesus?

[Miken]

As I have stated in other threads, I am tied up with RL. I will respond when and as I can.

Carrier got his PhD and was being funded by his patron followers. From his free blog writings. He told them with donations he would apply his research to the most requested topic. The donations paid off his student loans and the majority of requests were to do a Jesus historicity study.
7 years later and several books he presents all of his findings in the 700 page On the Historicity of Jesus from Sheffield Press. It's been peer-reviewed and has several scholars agree with his conclusions although much of what he's saying is already standard in the field.
In this lecture he's first presenting his finished works.

Carrier’s PhD dissertation has nothing to do with his claims. As I have discussed more than once, the subject is not at all related.

Peer review at Sheffield Phoenix means that it is about the Bible, that is written well enough to be read and that there is a potential audience willing to buy it. They print things that are all over the place in claims about biblical matters, these things disagreeing with each other, sometimes enormously. The peer review by this publisher does not mean they agree with what is being said or even understand it. This is not like peer review in scientific journals where the proposed article must be grounded in known science or make a very good case for why known science is not necessarily totally correct.

If Carrier said that his views are standard in the field, he is utterly wrong. To hold views that are standard in the academic field one must first know Koine Greek, Carrier does not. Or perhaps he is just lying about the meaning of the Greek in order to sell books.

Carrier mentions justifications in at least one lecture. There are 3 upper heavens, an atmosphere heaven, a stellar heaven and a limitless heaven. Kings 8 maybe? He sources a few texts.

Nonetheless, all of Paul’s references never go beyond the Three World model familiar to his audience. And equating οὐρανός with outer space is something beyond the comprehension of his audience. This is just Carrier being deliberately provocative to sell books.

Well it is ridiculous. But he also provided a source that has the body of Adam buried on Mars. I'll have to go back and watch the lecture.
The coslmology and cosmonagy is quite ridiculous and the upper heavens were literally in outer space.
In fact Carrier recently wrote a laymans 200 pg version of his main book called Jesus in Outer Space.
They believed the atmosphere extended way out into space and the celestial temple where Jesus was king was in one of these heavens. I'd have to research his quotes and I really don't care about details like that.

Selling books.

Paul uses a different word for human birth than what he uses for Jesus (see below).
Also Rom1:3 and Gal 4:4 look to be documents that scholarship believes were doctored to fit a narrative, see below..

"Paul said Jesus “came into being from a woman,” and his surrounding argument implies that by this he meant from the woman “Hagar…an allegory” (Gal. 4:4; see OHJ, Ch. 11.9). Ignatius now insists we must say Jesus is “from Mary,” not some generic “woman” in an argument about allegorical women. Notably Paul never mentions a Mary. Not in any creed he attests (see OHJ, Ch. 11.4). So why is her name now important to affirm in the creed?

In both places Paul said Jesus was “made” (ginomai) not “born” (gennaô), by choosing the same word Paul uses to signal divine manufacture (of Adam and our future resurrection bodies), and never of human birth, in conspicuous contrast to the word Paul does always use of human birth. Ignatius conspicuously reverses the vocabulary, and insists we now must say “born” (gennaô) not “made” (ginomai). Exactly the same way we know Christian scribes tried doctoring the manuscripts of Paul (in both Rom. 1:3 and Gal. 4:4 at the same time, thus proving they were well aware of the problem I’m pointing out: OHJ, p. 580, n. 91; hence though both words can mean birth, Christians were aware Paul’s usage did not)."

I have already addressed all of this in great detail. I am not seeing a response to my big-time criticisms. Carrier is either ignorant of Koine Greek or he is lying to sell books.

You don't seem to understand Carriers work at all? This is his argument on Romans 1:3

In Romans 1:3, Paul literally writes “concerning His Son, who came to be from the sperm of David according to the flesh.”
Most modern translations do not render these words literally but “interpret” the words to say something else according to each team of translators’ theological assumptions, adding words not in the Greek, or translating words contrary to Paul’s usual idiom.
We cannot answer the question with the data available whether Paul meant “sperm” (i.e. seed) allegorically (as he does mean elsewhere when he speaks of seeds and births, such as of Gentiles becoming the seed of Abraham by God’s declaration), or literally (God manufacturing a body for Jesus from the actual sperm of David), or figuratively (as a claim of biological descent—-even though Paul’s vocabulary does not match such an assertion, but that of direct manufacture). At best it’s equal odds. We can’t tell.
Two (not just one) of those possibilities are compatible with Jesus never having been on earth, and since all three readings are equally likely on present evidence, and that is why Romans 1:3 doesn’t help us determine if Paul believed Jesus was ever on earth.
Nevertheless I count this verse as evidence for historicity, ruling on the upper bound of my margins of error that it’s twice as likely Paul would write this if Jesus was a historical person than if he was not. And that’s quite generous, because…

Notice this is being counted as WEAK evidence FOR historicity.

It is very obvious what Paul meant by seed. The word σπέρμα is used 44 times in the NT. It refers to plant seed 6 times. It unequivocally refers to line of descent 37 times literally or figuratively outside of Romans. Why should it suddenly mean sperm cells? In addition, Paul is addressing Jewish Christians in Romans. They would understand perfectly well that the messiah is required to be of the House of David and immediately understand what Paul is saying. And one more time, the word Paul uses is NOT manufactured. The word means to become. It is Deponent (active) Voice. It would have to be Passive Voice to be manufactured.

Carrier is either totally ignorant of Koine Greek or deliberately lying to sell books. His claim about how actual sperm cells might be involved sure sounds like he is being intentionally outrageous to sell books.

I am familiar with the works of Ignatius of Antioch. Nowhere that I know of does Ignatius say anything about a change of vocabulary being needed. The sources Ignatius quotes with respect to Jesus being born are from Matthew, who does use the word born. Sounds like just another example of Carrier not telling the truth about his claims.

That Paul’s letters assume that his audience knows about Jesus courtesy of various other missionaries but Paul wants to tell them about the meaning of Jesus as interpreted by Paul instead of them is pretty good evidence that there was a Jesus.

This clears up a lot. It's consensus among the historicity field that there are only 7 authentic letters. This is not Carrier's work and is the opposite of a "conspiracy theory". Textual analysis, writing styles and all sorts of literary clues allow experts to see when a work is forged or altered.

Thirteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament have traditionally been attributed to Paul.[13] Seven of the Pauline epistles are undisputed by scholars as being authentic, with varying degrees of argument about the remainder. Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews is not asserted in the Epistle itself and was already doubted in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.[note 2] It was almost unquestioningly accepted from the 5th to the 16th centuries that Paul was the author of Hebrews,[14] but that view is now almost universally rejected by scholars.[14][15] The other six are believed by some scholars to have come from followers writing in his name, using material from Paul's surviving letters and letters written by him that no longer survive.
Paul the Apostle - Wikipedia

Paul said Jesus “came into being from David’s sperm” (genomenou ek spermatos Dauid, Rom. 1:3; see OHJ, Ch. 11.9). Ignatius now insists we have to say Jesus came “from the descendants of David” (ek genous Dauid). Conspicuously, precisely the thing Paul never said.
How Did Christianity Switch to a Historical Jesus? • Richard Carrier

As I have discussed multiple times now, Paul never said Jesus came into being from the sperm of David. The word is simply never used in that sense anywhere in the NT. Being descended from David is exactly what his Jewish Christian readers would expect to hear and would absolutely interpret it that way. Paul being Jewish would certainly mean it that way. Claiming that Paul meant something else and Ignatius wanted it changed is flatly untrue. Conspiracy theory.

You have clearly spent no time investigating Carriers work since like 2011. He has stated in multiple interviews and debates that he is fluent in the Greek that the NT is written in.

Either Carrier is ignorant of Koine Greek or his is lying about the meaning in order to sell books.

Yes, the gospels which came later were wildly fictitious and created an Earthly story for Jesus.

As I previously stated, Paul refers to his audiences already knows about Jesus and mentions other belief systems about Jesus being preached that are in opposition to his. It is clear that there really was a Jesus before Paul came on the scene. The spiritual only Jesus theory is nonsense. Can you justify such a theory?

https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-...=UTF8&tag=richardcarrier-20#reader_B00QSO2S5C

The intro explains what was meant bu upper heavens at the time. Others had mentioned several random passages during debates where he switched to the Greek form and explained what it meant. He said in a video he had to learn Hebrew, Greek - for the NT, Septuigant, histories, as well as several other languages and also reads tablets from Egypt, Syrian, Thracian and other tablets.

Don’t refer me to a book. This is a debate forum. Present the arguments here so everyone can see them.

Concerning Carrier’s claims about his knowledge of languages, either he is lying about that or he is lying about the meanings which are plainly wrong. I have shown that already but all I am getting in response is ‘but Carrier says’.

 

[joelr]

Peer review at Sheffield Phoenix means that it is about the Bible, that is written well enough to be read and that there is a potential audience willing to buy it.
If Carrier said that his views are standard in the field, he is utterly wrong. To hold views that are standard in the academic field one must first know Koine Greek, Carrier does not.

What peer review means in context of a publishing company is meaningless. My point remains the same, he is a PhD and he has a published work. I said much of Carriers lectures contain standard information accepted in the field. I never said this 3 to 1 odds favoring mythicism was standard? You are moving the goal post here.

Some scholars have moved to his position, that is all I said because that is all that has happened. The debate between historicity and mythicism continues.
The idea that Carrier is lying yet was able to hold his own against Mike Licona and other theologian scholars shows you are doing a bit of hand waving here.

Nonetheless, all of Paul’s references never go beyond the Three World model familiar to his audienceThis is just Carrier being deliberately provocative to sell books.

In Paul's day euhemerization was very common. Carrier cites references in his book of nearby religions.
It was first written about in 3BC by Euhemeris who pointed out many Gods were originally celestial deities and were later set on Earth and fictional histories were made around the God. These realms were supernatural realms or the upper heavens.
But calling the upper heavens "outer space" is just pointing out that the myths were silly. Even at that Carrier referenced a scripture that has Adams body on Mars. This is outer space. The authors of the passage may have thought Mars was part of a celestial realm. So?

The Ascension of Isaiah (what we know as the earliest version) 80-130AD - same as the gospels, Iasiah has a vision, Jesus does not descend to Earth but to the lower atmosphere between Earth and Moon and Jesus is crucified there. Outer space.

I have already addressed all of this in great detail. I am not seeing a response to my big-time criticisms. Carrier is either ignorant of Koine Greek or he is lying to sell books.

Carrier is clearly not ignorant of Greek and he of course wants to sell books. This criticism is ridiculous.

It is very obvious what Paul meant by seed. The word σπέρμα is used 44 times in the NT. It refers to plant seed 6 times. It unequivocally refers to line of descent 37 times literally or figuratively outside of Romans. Why should it suddenly mean sperm cells? In addition, Paul is addressing Jewish Christians in Romans. They would understand perfectly well that the messiah is required to be of the House of David and immediately understand what Paul is saying. And one more time, the word Paul uses is NOT manufactured. The word means to become. It is Deponent (active) Voice. It would have to be Passive Voice to be manufactured.

Carrier is either totally ignorant of Koine Greek or deliberately lying to sell books. His claim about how actual sperm cells might be involved sure sounds like he is being intentionally outrageous to sell books.

Carriers argument is summarized here:
The Cosmic Seed of David • Richard Carrier
"The problem posed is that in Romans 1:3 Paul says Jesus “came from the seed of David according to the flesh,” which historicists insist proves Paul knew Jesus was an ordinary man once living on earth, because this verse proves he believed he was a descendant of David. And a cosmically incarnated Jesus could hardly be descended from David.

But there is in turn a problem with that.
Paul does not say Jesus descended from David or was a descendant of David. Paul never says anything about his even having a father. Or being born. He only ever says his flesh, upon his incarnation, “came from the seed of David,” and was therefore Jewish and messianic flesh. He does not ever explain what he means by “came from.” The word Paul uses can sometimes mean birth in some other authors, but it is not the word Paul ever uses for birth (gennaô); instead, it’s the word he uses for God’s manufacture of Adam’s body from clay, and God’s manufacture of our future resurrection bodies in heaven (ginomai). Neither of which are born or have parents or are descendants of anyone.

In short, what Paul says in Romans 1:3 is, for Paul, weird. It’s weird even if Jesus existed. Christians even found it so weird themselves, they tried doctoring later manuscripts to replace this word that Paul only uses of manufacture and “coming to be,” with Paul’s preferred word for birth. So saying this passage is also weird if Jesus didn’t exist leaves us at a wash...."

I am familiar with the works of Ignatius of Antioch. Nowhere that I know of does Ignatius say anything about a change of vocabulary being needed. The sources Ignatius quotes with respect to Jesus being born are from Matthew, who does use the word born. Sounds like just another example of Carrier not telling the truth about his claims.

I don't care about Matthew in regards to a historical Jesus because that is a myth. The historicity debate centers around Paul.

That Paul’s letters assume that his audience knows about Jesus courtesy of various other missionaries but Paul wants to tell them about the meaning of Jesus as interpreted by Paul instead of them is pretty good evidence that there was a Jesus.

Paul only knows of a scripture and revelation. That's it. Paul knows of no Earthly Jesus. This line of "evidence" isn't even strong enough for pro-historicity scholars to counter the argument.

As I have discussed multiple times now, Paul never said Jesus came into being from the sperm of David. The word is simply never used in that sense anywhere in the NT. Being descended from David is exactly what his Jewish Christian readers would expect to hear and would absolutely interpret it that way.

That's why Carrier says:

"We cannot answer the question with the data available whether Paul meant “sperm” (i.e. seed) allegorically (as he does mean elsewhere when he speaks of seeds and births, such as of Gentiles becoming the seed of Abraham by God’s declaration), or literally (God manufacturing a body for Jesus from the actual sperm of David), or figuratively (as a claim of biological descent—-even though Paul’s vocabulary does not match suh an assertion, but that of direct manufacture). At best it’s equal odds. We can’t tell."

As I previously stated, Paul refers to his audiences already knows about Jesus and mentions other belief systems about Jesus being preached that are in opposition to his. It is clear that there really was a Jesus before Paul came on the scene. The spiritual only Jesus theory is nonsense. Can you justify such a theory?

Of course I can? Paul knows of no earthly Jesus, celestial beings were popular, dying/rising saviors were already happening in celestial realms, Philo of Alexandria tells of a pre-existant celstial being named Jesus and a PhD who did the most recent Jesus historicity study explains this evidence in this lecture:

Paul gives no references to Jesus being a preacher, having a ministry, disciples or anything except revelation and scripture.
No references to miracles, sermons, healings or to anyone not an apostle.

Petra Pakkanen (Interpreting Early Hellenistic religion 1996) demonstrates most religions in the time and region were combining 4 Hellenistic traits:
syncretism - combinations of religions
monotheism
individualism - agricultural cults redesigned as personal salvation cults w/ messianic saviors (often in a celestial realm)
cosmopolitanism - all races, creeds, one brotherhood
Christianity was one of many and combined Jewish theology with Hellenistic ideas.
Although most of the concepts were imported during the Persian occupation as Carrier and Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou often points out.
Mystery religions often had dying/rising saviors which played out in the celestial realms.
Some sources on that are here:
Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier

And again, space here is limited but you can read the entire preface of his book
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-...=UTF8&tag=richardcarrier-20#reader_B00QSO2S5C

Don’t refer me to a book. This is a debate forum. Present the arguments here so everyone can see them.

No no no. You can go to this link and literally read the preface of the book to get a far more detailed account of the argument complete with an account of what is meant by outer space.
Or not, I do not care.
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-...=UTF8&tag=richardcarrier-20#reader_B00QSO2S5C

Concerning Carrier’s claims about his knowledge of languages, either he is lying about that or he is lying about the meanings which are plainly wrong..

Demonstrably wrong because I'm giving you text directly from Carriers summary of the argument.

for example:

"

• It is an indisputable fact that when Paul says this, he uses a word he only uses of manufactured, not birthed bodies (ginomai, referring to Adam’s body: 1 Corinthians 15:45, in the very context of describing Adam’s body; and our future resurrection bodies: 1 Corinthians 15:37, which, as for Adam, God will manufacture for us).
• It is an indisputable fact that Paul uses a different word every time he refers to birthed bodies (gennaô, e.g. Romans 9:11, Galatians 4:23 and 4:29).
• It is an indisputable fact that subsequent Christian scribes were so bothered by the above two facts that they tried to doctor the manuscripts of Paul to change his word for “made” into his word for “born” (and did this in both places where Paul alludes to Jesus’s origin: Romans 1:3 and Galatians 4:4).
• It is an indisputable fact that Paul depicts Jesus’s body being manufactured for him in Philippians 2:7. No mention of birth, childhood or parents. And all this matters because…
  
  What Did Paul Mean in Romans 1:3? • Richard Carrier
  
  Carrier is building an argument on context, not looking up a definition and saying "look at what this word means"? He's going by how PAUL uses the word in other places.

 

[joelr]

Carrier’s PhD thesis was “Attitudes Toward the Natural Philosopher in the Early Roman Empire (100 B.C. to 313 A.D.)” I have read the abstract and there is nothing at all in it that suggests that Carrier ever read any scriptural source material, the subject matter being totally unrelated to that.

Like I said he's said literally he studied the original Greek for his 7 year historicity project.

What This Course Will Teach You
Your instructor will be Richard Carrier, Ph.D., who has years of training from Columbia University in paleography, papyrology, and ancient Greek. He will teach you the basics of how to investigate, criticize, and study the New Testament from the perspective of how its text is constructed from manuscripts, as well as how to work from the original Greek without learning anything more than the Greek alphabet and the international terminology of grammar, and how to investigate and make the best use of academic and peer reviewed biblical scholarship.

Students will learn how to: locate words in the Greek text of the Bible, and find their definitions using online resources, and to use that skill to critically examine English translations; check if the manuscripts disagree on what the text says at that point, and what to make of that if they do; talk and reason about disagreements in the manuscripts, as well as the differing valences of words between modern translations and ancient originals; discern what kinds of errors and deliberate alterations are common in the biblical manuscripts; and how to use scholarship on the New Testament critically and informedly.

 

[Muffled]

Do you have evidence supporting this idea?

I believe possibilities don't need evidence. I could speculate on how probably that is by saying that God controls everything and Christianity is the result.

 

[Muffled]

I don't

I believe the evidence is contrary to your belief.

 

[Muffled]

There were no Israelites 4000 years ago.The first mention we know of that mentions them was 1206 BC and at that time they were still part of the Canaanite society.

"No Egyptian text mentions the Israelites except the famous inscription of Merneptah dated to about 1206 B.C.E. But those Israelites were in Canaan; they are not in Egypt, and nothing is said about them escaping from Egypt."
William Denver biblical archeologist
Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

The Canaanite myths are largely still known and their flood myth would have had El or Baal involved. When the Israelites broke away from Canaan that is when they formed their own versions of the myths.
To take one culture from one time and suggest that their stories are the actual correct versions that pre-date all the others and is actually factually correct is some weird form of special pleading. You would first need some evidence that these myths are actually true.
It is far more likely that the Canaanite stories were formed during the time they were a culture and the same goes for the Israelites.

I do not believe the Isralites were ever part of Canaanite society.

 

[exchemist]

I believe possibilities don't need evidence. I could speculate on how probably that is by saying that God controls everything and Christianity is the result.

Ah, so no evidence, but just a speculation of yours, then. Fair enough.

 

[ChristineM]

I believe the evidence is contrary to your belief.

And what evidence would that be?

 

[joelr]

I do not believe the Isralites were ever part of Canaanite society.

William Dever, Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona, has investigated the archeology of the ancient Near East for more than 30 years and authored almost as many books on the subject.

"
The origins of Israel
What have archeologists learned from these settlements about the early Israelites? Are there signs that the Israelites came in conquest, taking over the land from Canaanites?
The settlements were founded not on the ruins of destroyed Canaanite towns but rather on bedrock or on virgin soil. There was no evidence of armed conflict in most of these sites. Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or destroyed by "Sea People"—Philistines, or others.

So gradually the old conquest model [based on the accounts of Joshua's conquests in the Bible] began to lose favor amongst scholars. Many scholars now think that most of the early Israelites were originally Canaanites, displaced Canaanites, displaced from the lowlands, from the river valleys, displaced geographically and then displaced ideologically.

So what we are dealing with is a movement of peoples but not an invasion of an armed corps from the outside. A social and economic revolution, if you will, rather than a military revolution. And it begins a slow process in which the Israelites distinguish themselves from their Canaanite ancestors, particularly in religion—with a new deity, new religious laws and customs, new ethnic markers, as we would call them today."

"
Were the people who became Israelites in some sense not "the chosen people" but rather "the choosing people"—choosing to be free of their Canaanite past?
Some liberation theologians and some archeologists have argued that early Israel was a kind of revolutionary social movement. These were people rebelling against their corrupt Canaanite overlords. In my recent book on early Israel I characterize the Israelite movement as an agrarian social reform. These are pioneers in the hill country who are fleeing the urban centers, the old Canaanite cities, which are in a process of collapse. And in particular they are throwing off the yoke of their Canaanite and Egyptian overlords. They are declaring independence."
Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

They also explain the evidence is that Exodus did not happen which fits the model of Israelites coming out of Canaan.
The original Yahweh worship had Yahweh paired with Ashera who was a Canaanite goddess and El, the main Cananite God is even mentioned in the OT. In a Hebrew variant it says El spread out the nations to each God, Yahweh getting Israel.
This was changed to be a passage only about Yahweh.

Other mentions -"
In the Ugaritic texts, the god
‘il or El is clearly portrayed as the supreme
god of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon and shares many similarities to
Israel’s patriarchal deity. It was during this same period that Canaanite culture
has been thought to flourish in Syria-Palestine. This paper will explore some
of the archaeological evidence of the two cultures but will rely mostly on the
historical textual evidence and research of modern scholars to show a shared
religious tradition between the Bronze Age ancestors of Israel and the native
inhabitants of the land of Canaan."
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1116&context=studiaantiqua





Jerusalem was first a Canaanite city:

"Canaan in the Late Bronze Age was a shadow of what it had been centuries earlier: many cities were abandoned, others shrank in size, and the total settled population was probably not much more than a hundred thousand.[11] Settlement was concentrated in cities along the coastal plain and along major communication routes; the central and northern hill country which would later become the biblical kingdom of Israel was only sparsely inhabited[12] although letters from the Egyptian archives indicate that Jerusalem was already a Canaanite city-state recognising Egyptian overlordship.[13] Politically and culturally it was dominated by Egypt,[14] each city under its own ruler, constantly at odds with its neighbours, and appealing to the Egyptians to adjudicate their differences.[12]

The Canaanite city state system broke down during the Late Bronze Age collapse,[15] and Canaanite culture was then gradually absorbed into that of the Philistines, Phoenicians and Israelites.[16] The process was gradual[17] and a strong Egyptian presence continued into the 12th century BCE, and, while some Canaanite cities were destroyed, others continued to exist in Iron Age I."

History of ancient Israel and Judah - Wikipedia

 

[Miken]

I got tied up with things and it took me some time to get back to this.

Part 1

What peer review means in context of a publishing company is meaningless. My point remains the same, he is a PhD and he has a published work. I said much of Carriers lectures contain standard information accepted in the field. I never said this 3 to 1 odds favoring mythicism was standard? You are moving the goal post here.

Some scholars have moved to his position, that is all I said because that is all that has happened. The debate between historicity and mythicism continues.
The idea that Carrier is lying yet was able to hold his own against Mike Licona and other theologian scholars shows you are doing a bit of hand waving here.

I have a PhD and have published in my field. Just as with Carrier, my PhD is not related to Biblical studies. My works have been published in professional journals after being peer reviewed by experts in my field who were concerned with the depth of my knowledge of the subject, appropriateness and accuracy of my methodology and the credibility of my conclusions, not just with whether or not it could be sold.

I have commented on the unlikeliness of mythicism due to different missionary traditions already existing when Paul came on the scene and several different schools of thought being exhibited. Most of the mythicist arguments are based on claims made about Jesus many decades after the alleged events, with clear purposes for making the claims in line with the agenda of the individual author. As I have already discussed, there is doubt that resurrection was always an original part of the story.

I have presented good arguments showing that Carrier is totally wrong about his understanding of the Greek expressions being used and that these ‘understandings’ are wildly divergent from Paul’s clear reasons for saying what he really said and how his audiences would understand them.

I have yet to hear any counter-arguments except ‘but Carrier says’. No hand waving here. Carrier is wrong about Paul’s vocabulary use as I have dealt with in fine detail and it sounds suspiciously like he is intentionally lying to invent a controversy and sell books.

The debate with Licona was about the resurrection. Licona was committed to the reality of the resurrection on grounds of faith when in truth the scriptures are not very good at supporting it. That there was an early belief in the resurrection is clear but there is also a strong suspicion that not all the various missionaries believed it.

In Paul's day euhemerization was very common. Carrier cites references in his book of nearby religions.
It was first written about in 3BC by Euhemeris who pointed out many Gods were originally celestial deities and were later set on Earth and fictional histories were made around the God. These realms were supernatural realms or the upper heavens.

The term Son of God may very well have originally been the label applied to the expected Messiah who would oust the foreign oppressors and establish a new Jewish kingdom. Mark has possession of what seem to be very early traditions about Jesus independent of Paul. A passage in Mark 14 suggest that the term Son of God was in fact originally understood that way. It would help explain why Mark has Jesus not want to be identified as the messiah, since the First Jewish War was about exactly that, ousting the Romans and establishing a Jewish kingdom, an effort that ended in disaster.

Paul’s use of the term Son of God is straight out of Philo of Alexandria as is very plain from his description of Jesus as a pre-existing heavenly being equal in a sense to God and the very explicit reference to Jesus as the means of creation, a major point of Philo. Sounds like Paul latched onto the term and put his own spin on it. That is, a real Jesus was called Son of God in a very different sense than Paul uses it.

In But calling the upper heavens "outer space" is just pointing out that the myths were silly. Even at that Carrier referenced a scripture that has Adams body on Mars. This is outer space. The authors of the passage may have thought Mars was part of a celestial realm. So?

The passage in question is in 2 Corinthians 5. This is a follow up to 1 Corinthians 15. In neither of these or anywhere else in Paul or anywhere in the NT for that matter is there any hint of any cosmological concept other than the well-known traditional Three Worlds idea of Underworld, Earth and Heaven. Carrier is not pointing out how silly it is. He is intentionally and unjustifiably inserting silliness to demean Paul and sell books.

The Ascension of Isaiah (what we know as the earliest version) 80-130AD - same as the gospels, Iasiah has a vision, Jesus does not descend to Earth but to the lower atmosphere between Earth and Moon and Jesus is crucified there. Outer space.

The Seven Heavens are found in Jewish Mysticism. There is no way that Paul would expect anyone in mainly Gentile Corinth to know anything about Jewish Mysticism. Although he would expect them to know the Three World concept taken for granted in Middle East and Mediterranean cultures for probably millennia.

Nowhere in the Ascension of Isaiah is there any mention of planets or outer space. These are supernatural heavens not physical ones. Jesus is born, lives, carries out his mission, is crucified, is buried, rises from the dead, spends days with the apostles and ascends. The mentions of Bethlehem and Nazareth make it clear that Jesus was on earth not in cislunar space, which is never mentioned anyway.

There are many quite explicit capsule references to all of the Gospels and to Acts (as well as to Paul). It is clear that the Ascension of Isaiah was written after all of those works, not contemporary with them. These also appears to be a reference to the Infancy Gospel of James, estimated to have been written between 140 and 170 CE.

Carrier is clearly not ignorant of Greek and he of course wants to sell books. This criticism is ridiculous.

I have explained in detail and at length how Carrier is utterly wrong about his representation of what Paul is saying. He shows every sign of depending on the KJV or similar mistranslations. If Carrier knows Greek, he keeps it well hidden.

Is there anyone around here who disagrees (or agrees) with my analysis of the actual meaning of the Greek passages compared to Carrier’s claims? On a site like this there should be at least some people with a working knowledge of Koine Greek.

Carriers argument is summarized here:
The Cosmic Seed of David • Richard Carrier
"The problem posed is that in Romans 1:3 Paul says Jesus “came from the seed of David according to the flesh,” which historicists insist proves Paul knew Jesus was an ordinary man once living on earth, because this verse proves he believed he was a descendant of David. And a cosmically incarnated Jesus could hardly be descended from David.

But there is in turn a problem with that.
Paul does not say Jesus descended from David or was a descendant of David. Paul never says anything about his even having a father. Or being born. He only ever says his flesh, upon his incarnation, “came from the seed of David,” and was therefore Jewish and messianic flesh. He does not ever explain what he means by “came from.” The word Paul uses can sometimes mean birth in some other authors, but it is not the word Paul ever uses for birth (gennaô); instead, it’s the word he uses for God’s manufacture of Adam’s body from clay, and God’s manufacture of our future resurrection bodies in heaven (ginomai). Neither of which are born or have parents or are descendants of anyone.

In short, what Paul says in Romans 1:3 is, for Paul, weird. It’s weird even if Jesus existed. Christians even found it so weird themselves, they tried doctoring later manuscripts to replace this word that Paul only uses of manufacture and “coming to be,” with Paul’s preferred word for birth. So saying this passage is also weird if Jesus didn’t exist leaves us at a wash...."

As I have been arguing all along, this is nonsense. The passage in Romans 1:3 reads

περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ τοῦ γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ κατὰ σάρκα
About the son of-him the one-becoming-of out of-seed of-David in-accordance-with flesh

The root word of γενομένου (one-becoming) is γίνομαι (ginomai, with a hard g).

The μαι ending of the root word identifies it as a Deponent verb, which has its own forms for active and passive. The forms are always middle voice. γίνομαι is also inherently prolonged, something that does not or did not happen all at once.

γενομένου is a participle (like ‘ing’ in English), Aorist tense which indicates a completed action, Middle Deponent voice equivalent to Active, Genitive ‘of’, and of course Masculine Singular since it refers to Jesus.

Using the Active Voice equivalent is important here. A very significant part of Paul’s message in Romans is that Jewish Christians must go beyond Judaism and abandon the Law. Jesus is being shown as actively coming out of Judaism and not being subordinate to it.

The combination of Aorist tense with the inherent prolonged form of γίνομαι amounts to Jesus becoming (in an active sense) in the past but not all at once, and the Genitive indicates becoming from something.

What Jesus was becoming from is stated in the next three words ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ, out of-seed of David. The word ‘seed’ σπέρμα is used 16 times in the undisputed Pauline letters. Three of those refer to plant seeds. The other 12 uses of the word outside of Romans 1:3 very plainly refer to descendants of a person, literally or figuratively. In fact, nowhere in the NT is this word ever used in any other sense than plant seeds or descendants. There is absolutely no reason to think Romans 1:3 means anything else but descendent.

Following that we see κατὰ σάρκα, in-accordance-with flesh. This amplifies the thought that Jesus is a real literal descendent of David, having become that way via the normal way of the flesh. Paul is emphasizing that Jesus was Jewish and (at least) a Messiah candidate. In Romans 1:1 Paul does refer to Jesus as Christ Χριστοῦ which is Greek for Messiah. But more importantly, Paul is emphasizing that Jewish Jesus is a literal descendant of David because he is going to use the word σπέρμα (seed) in a figurative sense concerning Gentiles.

Anyway, what reasonable meaning could possibly be assigned to ‘manufactured out of sperm cells according to the flesh’?

To sum it all up: The active tense, the completed over time reference, the identification of Jesus as a literal flesh descendent of David all point strongly away from Carrier’s claim of getting manufactured (passive) necessarily all at one (non-prolonged) out of literal sperm cells (not descendant in the flesh).

Now consider that Paul is talking to the Jewish Christians in the Roman community. They would have clearly understood what Paul is saying, that Jesus came out of Davidic descent. That is exactly what they would expect to hear about someone that Paul is calling Messiah. The thought that Jesus was manufactured out of the sperm cells of David, dead for a really long time, would sound totally crazy to them and they would stop listening.

Carrier is wrong. He is either ignorant of basic Greek, or was when he first wrote this, depending instead on the KJV mistranslation. And it is not just a matter of not knowing Greek. He refuses to look at context and purpose or he would never come up with this idea.

 

[Miken]

Part 2

I don't care about Matthew in regards to a historical Jesus because that is a myth. The historicity debate centers around Paul.

Carrier based his claim on later writers trying to change the vocabulary on Ignatius using the word ‘born’. This is the word that Matthew used so Ignatius was perfectly entitled to use it. If it is only allowed to talk about the writings of Paul, then Carrier cannot refer to Ignatius who was not Paul. Ignatius would not have been interested in using Paul’s language because it was something directed to Jews emphasizing the Jewish heritage of Jesus. Ignatius was a major proponent of dropping all Jewish customs and rules. Carrier’s claim about born versus become, rather bizarre to begin with, turns into mere hogwash when considered in context. But Carrier never considers context, does he?

Paul only knows of a scripture and revelation. That's it. Paul knows of no Earthly Jesus. This line of "evidence" isn't even strong enough for pro-historicity scholars to counter the argument.

Not the case.

Galatians 4:4
ὅτε δὲ ἦλθεν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ χρόνου, ἐξαπέστειλεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ, γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός, γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον,

When yet came the fulfillment of-the time sent-out the God the son of him becoming out of-woman becoming under law

γενόμενον (becoming) is the participle form of γίνομαι (ginomai) as in Romans 1:3 above. The slightly different spelling is due to slightly different sentence structure requiring different grammatical cases. Genitive in Romans and Accusative here. As in Romans it is Aorist (in the past) and an active voice, Jesus doing the becoming not anything being done to him.

Becoming out of woman sounds pretty earthly to me. Unless of course you want to say that Jesus was manufactured out of a woman instead of out of sperm cells. Becoming under the law requires getting circumcised. Sounds pretty earthly to me.

Paul frequently refers to Jesus being crucified or the cross. That really sounds earthly. So does dying, getting buried and getting raised from the dead, all of which Paul mentions.

Definitely earthly.

In addition, Paul talks about the Twelve who saw Jesus.

That's why Carrier says:

"We cannot answer the question with the data available whether Paul meant “sperm” (i.e. seed) allegorically (as he does mean elsewhere when he speaks of seeds and births, such as of Gentiles becoming the seed of Abraham by God’s declaration), or literally (God manufacturing a body for Jesus from the actual sperm of David), or figuratively (as a claim of biological descent—-even though Paul’s vocabulary does not match such an assertion, but that of direct manufacture). At best it’s equal odds. We can’t tell."

As I have shown at length above, Pauls’ vocabulary very definitely does match the idea of Jesus coming from the line of David. And it does not at all match the idea of being manufactured from sperm cells. Wrong word, became not made. Wrong voice, active not passive. And the use of a prolonged form which indicates that it did not happen quickly, like manufactured would, but over time as descent from David in accordance with the flesh would.

Again as I have shown above, the idea of Jesus being manufactured literally from David’s sperm would be utterly incomprehensible to Paul’s Jewish audience and probably make them stop reading if they thought he meant that whereas coming from the lineage of David would be both easily recognizable and something they would be willing to accept for a messiah candidate.

And one more time. There is not one single use of the word σπέρμα anywhere in Paul or even in the entire NT where the meaning is anything other than plant seeds or descendants of some person, literally or figuratively.

Where did Carrier get these ideas from? If we take a look at the entirety of what he said partially quoted above we just might see some interesting things.

All from What Did Paul Mean in Romans 1:3? • Richard Carrier


In Romans 1:3, Paul literally writes “concerning His Son, who came to be from the sperm of David according to the flesh.”

“Came to be”. Where does ‘made’ come from?

Most modern translations do not render these words literally but “interpret” the words to say something else according to each team of translators’ theological assumptions, adding words not in the Greek, or translating words contrary to Paul’s usual idiom.

What is Carrier referring to? He is referring to the KJV

Romans 1:3 (KJV) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;

The words ‘Jesus Christ our Lord’ are not in the Greek Textus Receptus compiled by Erasmus in the 16th century on which the KJV is based. And the word ‘made’ is of course the familiar ginomai in active voice and the inherent prolonged sense. In other words, not ‘made’ but ‘became’. The KJV says ‘made’. Is the right or the wrong interpretation according to Carrier?

Paul’s usual idiom? If Paul’s usual idiom was that the word means ‘made’ (despite the grammatical problems I have several times pointed out – active, prolonged) then we discover that in Romans 1:3, Jesus was made out of sperm cells but in Galatians 4:4 he was made out of a woman. Which one was it?

I still have this vision of Carrier reading the KJV and making up his whole story based on a mistranslation and not knowing Koine Greek he did not know any better. And now he has to defend it.

Of course I can? Paul knows of no earthly Jesus, c are not in thelestial beings were popular, dying/rising saviors were already happening in celestial realms, Philo of Alexandria tells of a pre-existant celstial being named Jesus and a PhD who did the most recent Jesus historicity study explains this evidence in this lecture:
Paul gives no references to Jesus being a preacher, having a ministry, disciples or anything except revelation and scripture.
No references to miracles, sermons, healings or to anyone not an apostle.

Paul talks numerous times about the Apostles naming some and claiming he is as good as any of them. Paul never met Jesus so his knowledge would be limited. But why all these other missionaries who were around before him and who contradict him? Hardly mythicist material. I have also made comments about this earlier.

Paul mentions nothing about Jesus performing miracles and I do not believe he did any. Mark started that as part of his campaign to make an interesting and impressive story about Jesus. A fair amount of Mark’s material sounds very convincing as being rooted in very early traditions about Jesus, material that would have been very relevant to the way things were around 30 CE but not really understandable to Mark’s post 70 CE audience. These include resistance to the Pharisees seeking to spread holiness among the Jewish people by adapting certain Temple practices to general use.

It is not totally clear whether it was the entirety of the Oral Torah that Jesus opposed or perhaps only some new ideas being made up. There are parts in Mark that sound a lot like the disagreements between the Shammai Pharisees and the Hillel Pharisees. In the post-Temple days, when the Hillel Pharisees had become predominant (due mostly to most of the Shammai Pharisees being anti-Roman partisans during the Jewish War) the dialogs became calmer.

We may note that Mark depicts Jesus as a strong proponent and follower of the Written Torah. If that were the case, Paul would not want to say a word about it, being totally opposite to what Paul wanted.

Petra Pakkanen (Interpreting Early Hellenistic religion 1996) demonstrates most religions in the time and region were combining 4 Hellenistic traits:
syncretism - combinations of religions
monotheism
individualism - agricultural cults redesigned as personal salvation cults w/ messianic saviors (often in a celestial realm)
cosmopolitanism - all races, creeds, one brotherhood
Christianity was one of many and combined Jewish theology with Hellenistic ideas.
Although most of the concepts were imported during the Persian occupation as Carrier and Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou often points out.
Mystery religions often had dying/rising saviors which played out in the celestial realms.
Some sources on that are here:
Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier

syncretism - combinations of religions
From Paul’s references to Jesus movements before him that followed Jewish Law, everywhere from Jerusalem to Rome and from Mark and Matthew with strong hints of having genuine early traditions and portraying Jesus as Torah observant, it is clear that the original from of the Jesus movement was Jewis and syncretic at all.

monotheism
Monotheism was part of parcel of Judaism for a long time.

individualism - agricultural cults redesigned as personal salvation cults w/ messianic saviors (often in a celestial realm)
Individual salvation became a part of Jewish thought a few hundred years earlier as evidenced by such works as 1 Enoch and Daniel. The Pharisees, around for close to 200 years at the time of Jesus, believed in resurrection and individual judgment.

cosmopolitanism - all races, creeds, one brotherhood
As can be seen in Paul and in Matthew, the original form of the Jesus movement required observing Jewish law. It was strictly Jewish.

Christianity was one of many and combined Jewish theology with Hellenistic ideas.
Not until Paul came along. It didn’t

Although most of the concepts were imported during the Persian occupation as Carrier and Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou often points out.
A key element in the Gospels is the issue of the Roman occupation and dealing with the Jewish War and its implications. The idea of a military style Messiah who would throw out the foreign forces and re-establish a Jewish kingdom began with the conquest of Israel by Alexander the Great and the introduction of Hellenistic ideas. This was after the relatively benign and religiously tolerant Persian rule. The Greeks gave way to the even rougher Romans and the time was ripe for patriotic revolution. Which failed.

Mystery religions often had dying/rising saviors which played out in the celestial realms.
Some sources on that are here:
Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier
As I have commented elsewhere, there is a good possibility that belief in the resurrection of Jesus was not universal in pre-Pauline Christianity. The dissent in Corinth when other missionaries arrived (including even Peter maybe) and the mysterious empty tomb and no Jesus in Mark, who has some very original sounding traditions represented in his Gospel. These and the unlikeliness of Torah observant Jews giving a hoot about, or even knowing about, other dying and rising god, or them considering Jesus as an actual god (which Paul seems to have started) argues against this as evidence for mythicism.

 

[Miken]

Part 3

And again, space here is limited but you can read the entire preface of his book
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-...=UTF8&tag=richardcarrier-20#reader_B00QSO2S5C

I know this book. The preface is actually useless for understanding what is being said. It presents no evidence or argumentation.

The book itself does not deal with any of the objections to mythicism I have raised such as:

@ The existence of Jesus being known to a variety of missionary groups before Paul came on the scene,

@ The Son of God term appears to have had a different meaning before introduced Philo referring to a revolutionary type messiah,

@ Mark and possibly Matthew have access to accurate information about the social and religious environment of the putative time of Jesus that is very different from the environment in the timeframe they wrote with Matthew having details Mark does not, and that in Mark Jesus comes across as a religious upstart who steps on the wrong toes and gets crucified for it, but does not appear pre-existent or in any way divine

@ That there is a strong suspicion that at least some of the earliest followers of Jesus (maybe even Peter!) did not believe in the resurrection.

Carrier does not deal with any of these.

Carrier also uses later developments in the story of Jesus as if they were original. These include:

@ The pre-existing godman view of Paul and its elaboration in John which Matthew and Luke deny

@ Just about all of the Rank-Raglan mythical hero attributes Carrier wants to apply are later additions to the Jesus story, such as unusual conception and virgin birth and father was a king and more. Concerning this, Carrier says that it does not matter. Such attributes can only ever be applied to mythical persons. Circular argument much?

Carrier has much to say about the name Jesus. He claims it means Savior. It does not, it means God is salvation, which points away the person not toward. He claims there are many savior gods named Savior. I cannot find any. Can you? Carrier also claims that Paul always said Jesus Christ to make the connection to some god or other. Paul never translates the Hebrew Jesus to Greek Savior although he does translate Hebrew Messiah into Greek Christ. Paul’s audience were mostly Gentiles who would have no knowledge of Hebrew. Some were Diaspora Jews who were less than likely to be fluent in Hebrew, which is why the Greek Septuagint was written. They would not get the meaning of Jesus, which again is not Savior anyway, as anything other than a name. And what are the odds of someone being named Jesus? In the NT there are also Jesus Barabbas, Jesus ben Ananias and Jesus ben Sirach.

The there is the part about the Ascension of Isaiah. When it does not support Carrier’s claims after all it must have been redacted. Sure.

More such objections but I will move on. Suffice it to say that the probabilities Carrier comes up with are simply unjustified and clearly biased and his resulting Bayesian analysis is nonsense.

Demonstrably wrong because I'm giving you text directly from Carriers summary of the argument.

for example:

" It is an indisputable fact that when Paul says this, he uses a word he only uses of manufactured, not birthed bodies (ginomai, referring to Adam’s body: 1 Corinthians 15:45, in the very context of describing Adam’s body; and our future resurrection bodies: 1 Corinthians 15:37, which, as for Adam, God will manufacture for us).

In 1 Cor 15:45 the word Ἐγένετο is used, this is another form of ginomai (Verb Indicative this time, not Participle) and like all uses of that word by Paul it is Middle Deponent which is an active voice. It is became, not made which would require a passive voice. But the KJV mistranslation says ‘made’ so that’s good enough for Carrier.

1 Cor 15:37 is not about future resurrection bodies. It is about seeds growing into plants. Carrier is undoubtedly confused by the English translation of soma as body which in Greek can mean any kind of body including the seeds of wheat or other grain Paul refers to here.

What is interesting about this verse is the fancy form of ginomai γενησόμενον which means will-be-becoming, a Participle again, Future tense fir a change but as always Middle Deponent = active voice. The seeds become plants in the natural course of affairs. Paul really means become not manufactured. If he wanted the Corinthians who did not believe in any kind of resurrection to buy into his story, the imagery had to sound natural. Being told that God is going to manufacture them new bodies would sound really suspicious and made up.

Paul always means ‘become’, the literal meaning and the most obvious one in context. He never means ‘manufactured’.

Romans 9:11, Galatians 4:23 and 4:29).
It is an indisputable fact that subsequent Christian scribes were so bothered by the above two facts that they tried to doctor the manuscripts of Paul to change his word for “made” into his word for “born” (and did this in both places where Paul alludes to Jesus’s origin: Romans 1:3 and Galatians 4:4).
It is an indisputable fact that Paul depicts Jesus’s body being manufactured for him in Philippians 2:7. No mention of birth, childhood or parents. And all this matters because…

What Did Paul Mean in Romans 1:3? • Richard Carrier

In Romans 9:11 and Galatians 4:23 and 4:29 (those last two I have previously dealt with) Paul is talking about children being born but without any reason to stress their prior lineage, as for example in Romans 1:3 and in Galatians 4:4. Why not say they were born?

Gotta throw the BS flag. What proof is there that any scribes tried to doctor manuscripts? If it is indisputable there must be indisputable proof. Where is it? I have asked this question several times now and gotten no answer. Just repeating the claim is not any kind of answer.

I have repeatedly dealt with Romans 1:3 and Galatians 4:4 and shown that Carriers claim is nonsense. Before you just quote it again please decide whether Jesus was manufactured out of the actual sperm cells of David (Romans 3:1) or out of a woman (Galatians 4:4). Likewise what it means to be manufactured out of sperm ‘according to the flesh’ (Romans 3:1) or manufactured out of a woman ‘under the law’ (Galatians 4:4).

Philippians 2 is exactly the same as all other uses of ginomai.

In Philippians 2:7 Paul says

ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος
of-human becoming
Once again a Participle, Middle Deponent = active voice

In Philippians 2:8 Paul says

ἐταπείνωσεν ἑαυτὸν γενόμενος ὑπήκοος
he-lowered himself becoming obedient
Once again a Participle, Middle Deponent = active voice
Or does Carrier want to say that Jesus manufactured himself obedient?In Philippians 2:15, now telling people how to be like Jesus, Paul says

ἵνα γένησθε ἄμεμπτοι
That you-may-become without-blame
Subjunctive mood verb for a change, but still Middle Deponent = active voice
Or does Carrier want to say that people should manufacture themselves blameless?

Paul is talking about the humility of Jesus, saying that Jesus willingly became human, If he was made that way where is the humility. Saying Jesus became human makes the poin. Why talk about his family? That would interfere of the direct flow of thought.


Paul never uses ginomai to mean ‘manufacture’ but always ‘become’. But the KJV says ‘made’ and that is all Carrier cares about.

Indisputable?

Carrier is building an argument on context, not looking up a definition and saying "look at what this word means"? He's going by how PAUL uses the word in other places.

And as I have shown, and not for the first time, Paul always uses the word ginomai in the sense of ‘become’ which is its meaning and is clear from the contexts and usages and always in the active voice. He never uses it in the sense of ‘manufactured’ which it does not mean and does not at all fit the contexts of the usages and would require a passive voice.

Please come back with something more than “Carrier says”.

 

[Miken]

Missed this one

joelr in Post 122

"Philo of Alexandria tells of a pre-existent celestial being named Jesus"

Not so. I know Philo's works and he never refers to a pre-existent celestial named Jesus. Philo's Son of God / Logos was not a human being, was never incarnated and was certainly not named Jesus. If you think there was, please cite what work it is in. In any case it is common practice among mythicists to claim that Jesus did not exist because his contemporary Philo never mentions him.
Witness to Jesus? - Philo of Alexandria

 

[joelr]

I got tied up with things and it took me some time to get back to this.

I have yet to hear any counter-arguments except ‘but Carrier says’. No hand waving here. Carrier is wrong about Paul’s vocabulary use as I have dealt with in fine detail and it sounds suspiciously like he is intentionally lying to invent a controversy and sell books.

You are giving dictionary definitions. Carrier is going by words Paul actually uses to try to understand the intention.

"The word Paul uses can sometimes mean birth in some other authors, but it is not the word Paul ever uses for birth (gennaô); instead, it’s the word he uses for God’s manufacture of Adam’s body from clay, and God’s manufacture of our future resurrection bodies in heaven (ginomai). Neither of which are born or have parents or are descendants of anyone.

In short, what Paul says in Romans 1:3 is, for Paul, weird. It’s weird even if Jesus existed. Christians even found it so weird themselves, they tried doctoring later manuscripts to replace this word that Paul only uses of manufacture and “coming to be,” with Paul’s preferred word for birth. So saying this passage is also weird if Jesus didn’t exist leaves us at a wash."


The Cosmic Seed of David • Richard Carrier

The passage in question is in 2 Corinthians 5. This is a follow up to 1 Corinthians 15. In neither of these or anywhere else in Paul or anywhere in the NT for that matter is there any hint of any cosmological concept other than the well-known traditional Three Worlds idea of Underworld, Earth and Heaven. Carrier is not pointing out how silly it is. He is intentionally and unjustifiably inserting silliness to demean Paul and sell books.

Paul speaks of 3 heavens.
“heaven(s)” (without prefixed preposition) 1st heaven
“in the heavenlies” (cf. Greek; with prefixed preposition). 2nd/3rd heaven.
outer space.
He should want to sell books. Paul held a myth that there were 3 heavens in outer space. It isn't unjustifiable to call it silly.
Thor had a magic hammer. Silly.

Nowhere in the Ascension of Isaiah is there any mention of planets or outer space. These are supernatural heavens not physical ones. Jesus is born, lives, carries out his mission, is crucified, is buried, rises from the dead, spends days with the apostles and ascends. The mentions of Bethlehem and Nazareth make it clear that Jesus was on earth not in cislunar space, which is never mentioned anyway.

More evidence that a celestial Jesus was the original story Paul was telling.

There are many quite explicit capsule references to all of the Gospels and to Acts (as well as to Paul). It is clear that the Ascension of Isaiah was written after all of those works, not contemporary with them. These also appears to be a reference to the Infancy Gospel of James, estimated to have been written between 140 and 170 CE.

No, the earliest version of Isaiah was put around the same time as the gospels.

I have explained in detail and at length how Carrier is utterly wrong about his representation of what Paul is saying. He shows every sign of depending on the KJV or similar mistranslations. If Carrier knows Greek, he keeps it well hidden.

Is there anyone around here who disagrees (or agrees) with my analysis of the actual meaning of the Greek passages compared to Carrier’s claims? On a site like this there should be at least some people with a working knowledge of Koine Greek.

He is comparing Paul's use of the words, not the dictionary. Why don't you ask him on messenger?
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My copy of his book which explains in detail is on loan.

As I have been arguing all along, this is nonsense. The passage in Romans 1:3 reads


What Jesus was becoming from is stated in the next three words ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ, out of-seed of David. The word ‘seed’ σπέρμα is used 16 times in the undisputed Pauline letters. Three of those refer to plant seeds. The other 12 uses of the word outside of Romans 1:3 very plainly refer to descendants of a person, literally or figuratively. In fact, nowhere in the NT is this word ever used in any other sense than plant seeds or descendants. There is absolutely no reason to think Romans 1:3 means anything else but descendent.

Following that we see κατὰ σάρκα, in-accordance-with flesh. This amplifies the thought that Jesus is a real literal descendent of David, having become that way via the normal way of the flesh. Paul is emphasizing that Jesus was Jewish and (at least) a Messiah candidate. In Romans 1:1 Paul does refer to Jesus as Christ Χριστοῦ which is Greek for Messiah. But more importantly, Paul is emphasizing that Jewish Jesus is a literal descendant of David because he is going to use the word σπέρμα (seed) in a figurative sense concerning Gentiles.

Anyway, what reasonable meaning could possibly be assigned to ‘manufactured out of sperm cells according to the flesh’?

To sum it all up: The active tense, the completed over time reference, the identification of Jesus as a literal flesh descendent of David all point strongly away from Carrier’s claim of getting manufactured (passive) necessarily all at one (non-prolonged) out of literal sperm cells (not descendant in the flesh).

Now consider that Paul is talking to the Jewish Christians in the Roman community. They would have clearly understood what Paul is saying, that Jesus came out of Davidic descent. That is exactly what they would expect to hear about someone that Paul is calling Messiah. The thought that Jesus was manufactured out of the sperm cells of David, dead for a really long time, would sound totally crazy to them and they would stop listening.

Carrier is wrong. He is either ignorant of basic Greek, or was when he first wrote this, depending instead on the KJV mistranslation. And it is not just a matter of not knowing Greek. He refuses to look at context and purpose or he would never come up with this idea.[/QUOTE]

Because Paul is using allegories earlier about "seeds". He references Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham and uses it as a allegory, Paul says Gentiles become by adoption “the seed of Abraham” he again means allegorically, not literally. So, when Paul says Jesus was born according to the flesh and from the seed of David, he can just as easily mean allegorically here as there, when he says this of us being born to Hagar and the seed of Abraham.

Are you even reading the argument he's putting forth? It isn't long or a "book" by any means?
The Cosmic Seed of David • Richard Carrier

 

[joelr]

Part 2

Carrier based his claim on later writers trying to change the vocabulary on Ignatius using the word ‘born’. This is the word that Matthew used so Ignatius was perfectly entitled to use it. If it is only allowed to talk about the writings of Paul, then Carrier cannot refer to Ignatius who was not Paul. Ignatius would not have been interested in using Paul’s language because it was something directed to Jews emphasizing the Jewish heritage of Jesus. Ignatius was a major proponent of dropping all Jewish customs and rules. Carrier’s claim about born versus become, rather bizarre to begin with, turns into mere hogwash when considered in context. But Carrier never considers context, does he?

Carrier gets into Ignatius and what he wanted changed and ties it into the seed of David about 1/2 way down you see the sub-title :Ignatius"

Establishing the Biblical Literalism of Early Christians • Richard Carrier

Galatians 4:4


Paul frequently refers to Jesus being crucified or the cross. That really sounds earthly. So does dying, getting buried and getting raised from the dead, all of which Paul mentions.

Definitely earthly.

In addition, Paul talks about the Twelve who saw Jesus.

Previous dying/rising savior gods had the story play out in the celestial realms. So crucifixion, dying, rising can happen in a celestial realm. Then were converted into history, a popular concept in the region.
The 12 apostles had visions.

Paul’s usual idiom? If Paul’s usual idiom was that the word means ‘made’ (despite the grammatical problems I have several times pointed out – active, prolonged) then we discover that in Romans 1:3, Jesus was made out of sperm cells but in Galatians 4:4 he was made out of a woman. Which one was it?

I still have this vision of Carrier reading the KJV and making up his whole story based on a mistranslation and not knowing Koine Greek he did not know any better. And now he has to defend it.

What Did Paul Mean in Romans 1:3? • Richard Carrier
But Carrier goes on with a 3rd list (your examples are from the 2nd list in that article and explains why be believes we cannot know what Paul meant for certain.
He then gets into all the multiple translations compared to the Greek to finish that post.

It still counts for historicity because his determination is we cannot be sure either way.

Paul talks numerous times about the Apostles naming some and claiming he is as good as any of them. Paul never met Jesus so his knowledge would be limited. But why all these other missionaries who were around before him and who contradict him? Hardly mythicist material. I have also made comments about this earlier.

Missionaries who were told of a demigod from scripture and stories does not contradict the mythicist position at all.

There are parts in Mark that sound a lot like the disagreements between the Shammai Pharisees and the Hillel Pharisees. In the post-Temple days, when the Hillel Pharisees had become predominant (due mostly to most of the Shammai Pharisees being anti-Roman partisans during the Jewish War) the dialogs became calmer.

Explanations of Jewish societies to Pagan cultures like Josephus, History of the Jews, he explains the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes were the main groups then in the gospels there is an absence of Essenes so some scholars believe Jesus is the Essene voice.

vsyncretism - combinations of religions

early traditions and portraying Jesus as Torah observant, it is clear that the original from of the Jesus movement was Jewis and syncretic at all.

Early OT was syncretic:

Enuma Elish - The Babylonian Epic of Creation - Full Text

"The Enuma Elish would later be the inspiration for the Hebrew scribes who created the text now known as the biblical Book of Genesis. Prior to the 19th century CE, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world and its narratives were thought to be completely original. In the mid-19th century CE, however, European museums, as well as academic and religious institutions, sponsored excavations in Mesopotamia to find physical evidence for historical corroboration of the stories in the Bible. These excavations found quite the opposite, however, in that, once cuneiform was translated, it was understood that a number of biblical narratives were Mesopotamian in origin. Famous stories such as the Fall of Man and the Great Flood were originally conceived and written down in Sumer, translated and modified later in Babylon, and reworked by the Assyrians before they were used by the Hebrew scribes for the versions which appear in the Bible."

Then at 6BCE scholars such as Professor Fransesca Stavrakopoulou, Carrier and Mary Boyce (who lived with modern Persians for 1 year) know that Zororastrian elements began entering the OT - messianic saviors, world ends in fire, good vs evil, good/bad afterlife, members get resurrected after the apocalypse and go to heaven, linear time, and so on.
Then popular mystery religions which had dying/rising savior gods who allowed members forgiveness of sins and entry into the afterlife was all over the region and Christianity is a Jewish version of this cult.
This is ALL syncretic.
The gospels used familiar mythic literature, markan sandwiches, ring structure, inversion, transformation of OT narratives.

monotheism

Monotheism was part of parcel of Judaism for a long time.

Early Israel has a consort for Yahweh (Ashera) and eventually a monothestic movement won out.

individualism - agricultural cults redesigned as personal salvation cults w/ messianic saviors (often in a celestial realm)

Individual salvation became a part of Jewish thought a few hundred years earlier as evidenced by such works as 1 Enoch and Daniel. The Pharisees, around for close to 200 years at the time of Jesus, believed in resurrection and individual judgment.

The first exposure to the Persian religion was 6 BCE. Greek Hellenistic mystery religions were even older.

cosmopolitanism - all races, creeds, one brotherhood

As can be seen in Paul and in Matthew, the original form of the Jesus movement required observing Jewish law. It was strictly Jewish.

Paul preached to gentiles. The movement was open to all.

Christianity was one of many and combined Jewish theology with Hellenistic ideas.

Not until Paul came along. It didn’t

Not true. In 6 BCE they adopted all the main points of the religion of those who were occupying their land.
At 3:40 Professor Stravopolou explains why this happened.

from 6BC on

Carrier also does a lecture on this.

"Historical features of Zoroastrianism, such as messianism, judgment after death, heaven and hell, and free will may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including Second Temple Judaism, Gnosticism, Greek philosophy,[7] Christianity, Islam,[8] the Baháʼí Faith, and Buddhism.[9]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

Although most of the concepts were imported during the Persian occupation as Carrier and Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou often points out.

A key element in the Gospels is the issue of the Roman occupation and dealing with the Jewish War and its implications. The idea of a military style Messiah who would throw out the foreign forces and re-establish a Jewish kingdom began with the conquest of Israel by Alexander the Great and the introduction of Hellenistic ideas. This was after the relatively benign and religiously tolerant Persian rule. The Greeks gave way to the even rougher Romans and the time was ripe for patriotic revolution. Which failed.

Yes I just mean the concepts that are now commonly thought of, messianic saviors, good vs evil, heaven/hell...are Persian.

Mystery religions often had dying/rising saviors which played out in the celestial realms.
Some sources on that are here:
Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier

As I have commented elsewhere, there is a good possibility that belief in the resurrection of Jesus was not universal in pre-Pauline Christianity.These and the unlikeliness of Torah observant Jews giving a hoot about, or even knowing about, other dying and rising god, or them considering Jesus as an actual god (which Paul seems to have started) argues against this as evidence for mythicism.

Like Professor Fransesca points out, Carrier elaborates that it was time for a new updated Judaism. During the Persian occupation Jewish prophets began saying they too will be getting a savior and so on.
These features came about as prophecies during the occupation of a culture that already was like CHristianity and the emmisary to the Jewish leaders was a well liked Persian.


"We believe that Zoroastrianism greatly influenced Judaism and Christianity, and then trickled through to Islam. This ‘osmosis’ particularly seems to have happened with the afterlife doctrine. The concepts of heaven and hell, God vs Satan, individual judgement, resurrection of the body, the last judgement, the coming of the Messiah – these are mainstream Zoroastrian theological ideas which entered post-exilic Judaism around the fourth century bce. From my understanding of Judaism, it did not originally have a defined ideology as far as its eschatology was concerned."

Carrier and Professor F.S. agree with this completely.

 

[Miken]

You are giving dictionary definitions. Carrier is going by words Paul actually uses to try to understand the intention.

"The word Paul uses can sometimes mean birth in some other authors, but it is not the word Paul ever uses for birth (gennaô); instead, it’s the word he uses for God’s manufacture of Adam’s body from clay, and God’s manufacture of our future resurrection bodies in heaven (ginomai). Neither of which are born or have parents or are descendants of anyone.

In short, what Paul says in Romans 1:3 is, for Paul, weird. It’s weird even if Jesus existed. Christians even found it so weird themselves, they tried doctoring later manuscripts to replace this word that Paul only uses of manufacture and “coming to be,” with Paul’s preferred word for birth. So saying this passage is also weird if Jesus didn’t exist leaves us at a wash."

The Cosmic Seed of David • Richard Carrier

I have already addressed Carrier’s claims about Adam and future bodies. 1 Cor 15:37 refers to plants coming to be (ginomai) from seeds. Paul needs natural sounding imagery to coax the doubting Corinthians into believing resurrection is possible. Plants growing out of seeds is a natural sounding image. Manufactured out of seeds in some unnatural sounding way would blow Paul’s argument.

In 1 Cor 15:45 Adam became (Middle Deponent is an active voice) not ‘was manufactured’ which would be a different word and would require passive voice. No verb at all is used with respect to Jesus in that verse but we may assume the same verb applies. But it refers to Jesus becoming a spirit. As per the overall context of 1 Cor 15 this clearly refers to the resurrection of Jesus not to his origin. Carrier is wrong.

In the Hebrew scriptures the word seed זֶרַע is used 220 times other than in 2 Samuel 7:12, which Carrier claims means literal sperm. Of those 220 other occurrences, 30 refer to plant seeds and 182 definitely refer to descendants. The remaining 8 do refer to literal sperm but always in a pejorative sense. Four refer to purification rituals for a man who has ejaculated. Three refer to illicit intercourse, with a non-Jew or another man’s wife or with a slave woman that one is not going to marry. The remaining reference is to Onan spilling his seed on the ground. The word would obviously be understood as meaning descendants.

For 1 Samuel 7 to be understood as a prophecy meaning that the messiah would be manufactured out of the literal sperm of David would require that this interpretation was widely known and accepted as totally supplanting the usual interpretation as the messiah being a descendant of David. Where is there any evidence of that? Unless that can be demonstrated, Carrier’s argument falls apart. The ‘superstitious Jews’ Paul was writing to were educated (Greek reading) cosmopolitan (Roman) Jewish Christians. What grounds does Carrier have for calling them superstitious? Other than just another way of trying to support his non-existent case.

Subsequent writers had no trouble understanding what Paul was saying.

Aramaic Pesheetta translations of Romans 1:3 by

Dr. John W. Etheridge
Romans 1:3 - concerning his Son, who was born, according to the flesh, of the seed of the house of David,

Dr James Murdock
Romans 1:3 - concerning his Son, (who was born in the flesh, of seed of the house of David,

Dr. George Lamsa
Romans 1:3 - Concerning his son who was born in the flesh of the seed of the house of David,

Pe****ta New Testament


That the Aramaic really says that can be seen here
הבית דוד
of-David of-house (read right to left naturally)
Pe****ta New Testament


I had to use tinyurl for the above because the language Nazi objected to the correct spelling of Pesheeta.


Those who translated to Aramaic apparently had never heard of this well-known prophecy about literal sperm supplanting the descendent of David prophecy

There is no prophecy in 2 Samuel 7 about David’s literal seed being stashed away until it was time to make Jesus. Carrier is using a preposterous interpretation to justify his other preposterous interpretation via circular reasoning.

If you read even Carrier’s quote from Ignatius, you will see that other Christians are not denying the historicity of Jesus but that he was a real human and not just a spirit pretending to be human, that is, Gnosticism. Carrier even admits that in OHJ on page 366.

“Because, he says, if these ‘godless unbelievers’ say that Jesus only ‘seemed’ to suffer, then Ignatius is living a lie, and dying for nothing.”

We can also see references to Docetism in the letters of John. But Carrier never considers any sort of context in his claims. He just quote mines and misinterprets.

Paul speaks of 3 heavens.
“heaven(s)” (without prefixed preposition) 1st heaven
“in the heavenlies” (cf. Greek; with prefixed preposition). 2nd/3rd heaven.
outer space.
He should want to sell books. Paul held a myth that there were 3 heavens in outer space. It isn't unjustifiable to call it silly.
Thor had a magic hammer. Silly

If Carrier knew Greek, he would know that whether a separate preposition is used in addition to signifying an implicit preposition by case is a matter of grammatical context. It does not assign different meanings to the object of the preposition.

Let us look at Paul’s use of ‘heaven’

Romans 1:18
ἀπ' οὐρανοῦ
from of-heaven (singular)
This is where the wrath of God is coming from. ἀπ (from) is necessary to indicate that the wrath is coming from heaven and is no the wrath of heaven, with an implication of the wrath being an attribute of heaven.

Romans 10:6
εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν
into the heaven (singular)
Note the definite article τὸν indicating a specific heaven yet no identification of which heaven has been made. Sounds like Paul means here is only one heaven.

1 Corinthians 8:5
εἴτε ἐν οὐρανῷ εἴτε ἐπὶ γῆς
whether in heaven whether on earth
οὐρανῷ (heaven) is dative, the proper case for an indirect object of the verb ‘called’ earlier in the sentence which has a direct object of ‘gods’..

1 Corinthians 15:40
There are two uses of ἐπουράνιος in 1 Cor 40

σώματα ἐπουράνια
bodies on-heavenlies
No prefixed preposition, note that ἐπουράνια is an adjective

τῶν ἐπουρανίων
of-the on-heavenlies
Prefixed preposition, again an adjective

Same word with same meaning, one prefixed with a preposition, one not.
Obviously Carrier is wrong about the presence or absence of a prefixed preposition denoting different heavens.

There are more but mostly they are no different from what I have presented above. However, there are two of very significant interest.

Philippians 2:10
πᾶν γόνυ κάμψῃ ἐπουρανίων καὶ ἐπιγείων καὶ καταχθονίων
every knee should-bow of-on-heavenlies and of-on-earth and of-under-earth

Three worlds. One heaven.

2 Corinthians 12:2
τρίτου οὐρανο
of-third of-heaven

This is the only place where Paul uses a number in reference to heaven.

Some background to this passage: Paul had visited Corinth and preached there. After he left some other missionaries came along and preached different things. (Paul names some names.) One of the things was that there was no such thing as the resurrection. And apparently that Paul was no apostle as he claimed. In 1 Corinthians Paul insist that he is too an apostle. In 1 Cor 15 Paul gives this elaborate witness to the resurrection and includes himself in this list. It seems that some people in Corinth had a problem with this as well. 2 Corinthians 12 looks like Paul trying to get himself out of the accusation of claiming to have seen Jesus along with all those 500+ people when he was nowhere around at the time.

2 Corinthians 12

2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth such an one caught up to the third heaven.

3 And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth

4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

5 Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.

6 For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me.

Notice that Paul is doing his “I’m so humble” thing as he did a few times in 1 Cor.

The Third Heaven in 2 Enoch is an Eden like place where the Lord likes to take his rest. A good place for meeting the Lord. And a convenient place for Paul to get his apostleship merit badge.

We might note that 2 Enoch has ten heavens whereas Ascension of Isaiah had only seven and according to Carrier Paul has three. None of these can reasonably connected to outer space, an unknown concept at the time to Paul’s audience.

In 1 Cor 15, Paul played around with multiple senses of the word for ‘see’, literal or figurative, to sneak himself on to the witness list and be an apostle. Now suddenly he is not certain on just how bodily his experience should be taken. And “Wait! Did I say ‘see’? I only meant ‘hear’”. A less tricky word when it comes to senses.

In short, Paul is trying to get out of being called out on his claims yet another time. He is saying whatever it takes. There is no real reason Paul rally believed in three heavens.

BTW other than the single use in the first instance in 1 Cor 14:40, I cannot find any instances of ‘heaven’ without a prefixed preposition. Carrier does not know what he is talking about.


Norse tradition believed Thor has a hammer. Jews thought that the messiah would be a literal descendant of David, which Romans 1:3 ties directly to. It is claiming that Paul would say that God kept the literal sperm of David in a jar in the freezer and thawed it out centuries later and that his Jewish audience would understand it that way and of they did that they would believe anything else he said – that is silly. It is Carrier who is being silly. But that is what happens when you build a crazy idea based on the KJV mistranslation and now have to somehow back into it in the Greek.

I will get to the rest when I can.

 

[joelr]

Part 3



I know this book. The preface is actually useless for understanding what is being said. It presents no evidence or argumentation.

The book itself does not deal with any of the objections to mythicism I have raised such as:

@ The existence of Jesus being known to a variety of missionary groups before Paul came on the scene,

@ The Son of God term appears to have had a different meaning before introduced Philo referring to a revolutionary type messiah,

So some missionaries were told a story and they believed it? None of this says mythicism is impossible.

@ Mark and possibly Matthew have access to accurate information about the social and religious environment of the putative time of Jesus that is very different from the environment in the timeframe they wrote with Matthew having details Mark does not, and that in Mark Jesus comes across as a religious upstart who steps on the wrong toes and gets crucified for it, but does not appear pre-existent or in any way divine

@ That there is a strong suspicion that at least some of the earliest followers of Jesus (maybe even Peter!) did not believe in the resurrection.

Carrier does not deal with any of these.

Carrier also uses later developments in the story of Jesus as if they were original. These include:

@ The pre-existing godman view of Paul and its elaboration in John which Matthew and Luke deny

The gospels do not present Jesus as pre-existent, the entire idea of mythicism is that Paul was talking about a non-Earthly Jesus while the gospels create a fictional narrative on Earth.

@ Just about all of the Rank-Raglan mythical hero attributes Carrier wants to apply are later additions to the Jesus story, such as unusual conception and virgin birth and father was a king and more. Concerning this, Carrier says that it does not matter. Such attributes can only ever be applied to mythical persons. Circular argument much?

Yes this is why Carrier has a lecture on why the GOSPELS are myth. Rank-Raglan attributes are applied to the gospels. Mythicism is the idea that there was never an actual man named Jesus.

Carrier has much to say about the name Jesus. He claims it means Savior. It does not, it means God is salvation, which points away the person not toward. He claims there are many savior gods named Savior. I cannot find any. Can you? Carrier also claims that Paul always said Jesus Christ to make the connection to some god or other. Paul never translates the Hebrew Jesus to Greek Savior although he does translate Hebrew Messiah into Greek Christ. Paul’s audience were mostly Gentiles who would have no knowledge of Hebrew. Some were Diaspora Jews who were less than likely to be fluent in Hebrew, which is why the Greek Septuagint was written. They would not get the meaning of Jesus, which again is not Savior anyway, as anything other than a name. And what are the odds of someone being named Jesus? In the NT there are also Jesus Barabbas, Jesus ben Ananias and Jesus ben Sirach.

Either way, savior or God is salvation, that point still stands.
I do not know which other dying/rising demigods were called savior. The Persians however were expecting a messiah called the "world savior".

The there is the part about the Ascension of Isaiah. When it does not support Carrier’s claims after all it must have been redacted. Sure.

Like I said the earliest known version of Isaiah is around the same time as the gospels.

`

In 1 Cor 15:45 the word Ἐγένετο is used, this is another form of ginomai (Verb Indicative this time, not Participle) and like all uses of that word by Paul it is Middle Deponent which is an active voice. It is became, not made which would require a passive voice. But the KJV mistranslation says ‘made’ so that’s good enough for Carrier.

1 Cor 15:37 is not about future resurrection bodies. It is about seeds growing into plants. Carrier is undoubtedly confused by the English translation of soma as body which in Greek can mean any kind of body including the seeds of wheat or other grain Paul refers to here.

What is interesting about this verse is the fancy form of ginomai γενησόμενον which means will-be-becoming, a Participle again, Future tense fir a change but as always Middle Deponent = active voice. The seeds become plants in the natural course of affairs. Paul really means become not manufactured. If he wanted the Corinthians who did not believe in any kind of resurrection to buy into his story, the imagery had to sound natural. Being told that God is going to manufacture them new bodies would sound really suspicious and made up.

Paul always means ‘become’, the literal meaning and the most obvious one in context. He never means ‘manufactured’.

Carrier makes an argument based on what Paul says. I keep repeating this and you refuse to even try to understand the point. You just keep going back to the dictionary. The word Paul uses is the same word he used for God's manufacture of Adams body from clay.

Later in the article Carrier explains why these beliefs were not uncommon and would not sound suspicious or made up. Evidence for cosmic sperm banking, our future resurrection bodies are likewise manufactured in outer space according to Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 and was also a concept in the Persian religion which was a large influence on the Jewish religion.

The Cosmic Seed of David • Richard Carrier

"He does not ever explain what he means by “came from.” The word Paul uses can sometimes mean birth in some other authors, but it is not the word Paul ever uses for birth (gennaô); instead, it’s the word he uses for God’s manufacture of Adam’s body from clay, and God’s manufacture of our future resurrection bodies in heaven (ginomai). Neither of which are born or have parents or are descendants of anyone.

In short, what Paul says in Romans 1:3 is, for Paul, weird. It’s weird even if Jesus existed. Christians even found it so weird themselves, they tried doctoring later manuscripts to replace this word that Paul only uses of manufacture and “coming to be,” with Paul’s preferred word for birth. So saying this passage is also weird if Jesus didn’t exist leaves us at a wash.
Did Paul mean “seed” allegorically (as he does mean elsewhere when he speaks of seeds and births), or is he referring to a claim of biological descent (even though his vocabulary does not match such an assertion, but that of direct manufacture)? At best it’s 50/50. We can’t tell."

It's not a conclusive argument for historicity. All of your arguments above are speculative, they also fall into the "we cannot tell" group.

 

[joelr]

Missed this one

joelr in Post 122

"Philo of Alexandria tells of a pre-existent celestial being named Jesus"

Not so. I know Philo's works and he never refers to a pre-existent celestial named Jesus. Philo's Son of God / Logos was not a human being, was never incarnated and was certainly not named Jesus. If you think there was, please cite what work it is in. In any case it is common practice among mythicists to claim that Jesus did not exist because his contemporary Philo never mentions him.
Witness to Jesus? - Philo of Alexandria

What Carrier is referring to is:

Carrier then quotes the passage from Philo, and I quote it here from the Yonge translation available online. The word “East” has since been better understood as “Rises”, as in the rising of the sun:

“Behold, a man whose name is the East!” A very novel appellation indeed, if you consider it as spoken of a man who is compounded of body and soul; but if you look upon it as applied to that incorporeal being who in no respect differs from the divine image, you will then agree that the name of the east has been given to him with great felicity. (63) For the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in another passage, he calls the firstborn; and he who is thus born, imitating the ways of his father . . . . (On the Confusion of Tongues, Book 14:62, 63)


About the passage Carrier writes:

"Nor was the idea of a preexistent spiritual son of God a novel idea among the Jews anyway. Paul’s contemporary, Philo, interprets the messianic prophecy of Zechariah 6:11-12 in just such a way. In the Septuagint this says to place the crown of kingship upon “Jesus,” for “So says Jehovah the Ruler of All, ‘Behold the man named ‘Rises’, and he shall rise up from his place below and he shall build the House of the Lord’.” This pretty much is the Christian Gospel. Philo was a Platonic thinker, so he could not imagine this as referring to “a man who is compounded of body and soul,” but thought it meant an “incorporeal being who in no respect differs from the divine image” whom “the Father of the Universe has caused to spring up as the eldest son.” Then Philo says, “In another passage, he calls this son the firstborn,” and says “he who is thus born” imitates “the ways of his father.” (Not the Impossible Faith, pp. 250-251)"


I'm not sold on it 100%, I'm awaiting some debates between Carrier and other Biblical historians.
Bart Ehrman discusses it on his blog. I'm not paying a monthly fee to read a blog however.

 

[joelr]

I have already addressed Carrier’s claims about Adam and future bodies. 1 Cor 15:37 refers to plants coming to be (ginomai) from seeds. Paul needs natural sounding imagery to coax the doubting Corinthians into believing resurrection is possible. Plants growing out of seeds is a natural sounding image. Manufactured out of seeds in some unnatural sounding way would blow Paul’s argument.

The argument is not that hard. Because Paul uses allegorical parallel statements elsewhere we can not be sure if by "seed" he meant an allegory or a literal biological descent. It's not enough to argue in favor of historicity or mythicism.

Norse tradition believed Thor has a hammer. Jews thought that the messiah would be a literal descendant of David, which Romans 1:3 ties directly to. It is claiming that Paul would say that God kept the literal sperm of David in a jar in the freezer and thawed it out centuries later and that his Jewish audience would understand it that way and of they did that they would believe anything else he said – that is silly. It is Carrier who is being silly. But that is what happens when you build a crazy idea based on the KJV mistranslation and now have to somehow back into it in the Greek.

I will get to the rest when I can.

Again, because Paul uses allegory we do not need a literal reading of Romans 1:3.

Carrier gives examples of cosmic sperm banks in Jewish lore and such:

Tim O'Neill & the Biblical History Skeptics on Mythicism • Richard Carrier


Has an entire article on the Cosmic Seed:
The Cosmic Seed of David • Richard Carrier

Carrier claims that Paul's use of the word "made" was changed at some point. I do not know the source on this, it might say in the book OHJ.

"
The phrase “born of a woman, born under the law” in Galatians 4:4 is an allegory for world order. As Paul explicitly says, the “mothers” he is talking about in his argument in Galatians 4 are not people but worlds (Galatians 4:24). In both cases Paul does not use the word he uses for human birth, but the word he uses for divine manufacture (“was created/made”), the same word he uses of God making Adam and our future resurrection bodies (1 Corinthians 15:37 and 15:45), neither of which are “born” to actual human mothers (or fathers).

Later Christians knew this and tried to change the words to what they needed to be there (and what Evans needs to be there), altering them both (simultaneously here and in Romans 1:3) to Paul’s preferred word for “born” rather than “made,” but we caught them at it, and those doctored variants are excluded from the received text. Experts now know that what Paul actually originally wrote in both passages was his preferred word for “made.” So we can’t tell if Paul means God manufactured Jesus a body out of Davidic seed, or if Jesus was born to some human father descended from David; nor can we tell if Paul thought Jesus was born of a real mother or only an allegorical one. So there is no usable evidence here. At all. Certainly not substantial evidence."
Yes, Galatians 4 Is Allegorical • Richard Carrier

 

[joelr]

For 1 Samuel 7 to be understood as a prophecy meaning that the messiah would be manufactured out of the literal sperm of David would require that this interpretation was widely known and accepted as totally supplanting the usual interpretation as the messiah being a descendant of David. Where is there any evidence of that? Unless that can be demonstrated, Carrier’s argument falls apart. The ‘superstitious Jews’ Paul was writing to were educated (Greek reading) cosmopolitan (Roman) Jewish Christians. What grounds does Carrier have for calling them superstitious? Other than just another way of trying to support his non-existent case.

.

Also the Zoroastrians had directly influenced Jewish theology from 6CE on and they already had the same concepts now being discussed - saviors and cosmic seeds.
Carrier and Professor Fransesca Stravopolou both confirm this, and the information on the Persians is from the leading scholar on the subject Mary Boyce.


"The Zoroastrians believed that the final prophet would be born of a virgin who would become pregnant after bathing in Lake Kasaoya, which contained the miraculously preserved the semen of Zoraster. Interestingly enough, this final prophet would resurrect the dead, his apprearance marks the final triumph of good over evil, and he would be a judge of mankind. My sources for this are:

Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume 4, Page 127.

Mark W. Muesse, The Age of the Sages: The Axial Age in Asia and the Near East. p.29

Regardless of whether the early Christians borrowed this idea from the Zoroastrians or not, this should establish at least that the idea of supernatural conception and supernaturally preserved ‘seed’ or semen was conceivable to ancient people.

Did the Christians borrow this idea from the Zoroastrians?

Consider that the final Zoroastrian prophet (called the Saoshyant) was a virgin-born savior figure who would usher in the apocalypse and raise the dead (like Jesus), and many scholars believe that the Saoshyant concept influenced Danielic Son of Man (which Jesus was thought to be)."
Seed of David, Take Two... • Hume's Apprentice



Also if the Gospels say Jesus was from the seed of David what do you think they meant?